UND92,96

I don't dispute that SDSU should be the favorite next year. But UND could be a darkhorse. Most people seem to think that once Beasley leaves, the Sioux are done. But Aaron Austin is the real deal, and quite possibly the top incoming recruit in the NCC next year. Jeff Brandt had a sub-par season, but he's still a former NCC freshman of the year and an all-conference pick as a soph. Mike Johnson has really improved and is a very talented player. Todd Rypkema has a huge upside to his game and at 6'11" is very tough to match up with. Add Adam Jacobson and Josh Doyle to the mix, along with an improved Evan Lindahl and hopefully one more talented juco front court player, and UND could be pretty tough next season.

I happened to read in the online edition of the Omaha paper that they were extremely unhappy that they weren't selected for the regional. Hmmm, let's see, maybe it was because they finished 5th in the NCC, and were only 15-10 against division II opponents? They also apparently thought UND should have voluntarily forfeited the games Allen played in. Whatever.

Has UND ever outdrawn NDSU for football? I'm not sure. Quite frankly, considering the fact that the F-M area is approximately double the population of the Grand Forks area, I would hope NDSU could muster a few thousand more per game, although they can't seem to do it for basketball. However, NDSU fans have also shown that they are front-runners, just like anywhere else. The very low attendance for all your home games last year following the UND game is proof of this. For what it's worth, I would virtually guarantee that had the Sioux-Bison game not been in Fargo last year, NDSU attendance would have been less than UND's. That gate was the only thing that saved what could have been a disastrous year financially for the football program. As far as routinely selling out the Fargodome, I wouldn't count on it during our lifetimes. Take away the UND games, and there's nothing to support the contention that NDSU is capable of selling out, or even coming close to selling out the Fargodome on a routine basis. At least unless the team returns to its 80's level of success. Somehow, I don't see how moving to I-AA will make is more likely that NDSU will become a dominating program again.

Yeah, and the selection committee sucks. I understand that when you are the beneficiary of a highly questionable decision, then it's human nature not to be very critical of it. Unfortunately, decisions such as this undermine the entire selection/seeding process. If a committee isn't going to bother following the criteria chosen by the NCAA, then at an absolute minimum it gives an appearance of impropriety, if not outright corruption and/or incompetence. Last season, this committee--with mostly the identical membership--actually selected more RMAC teams for the tournament than NCC teams! Can you imagine the idiocy such a decision requires? While they didn't have the audacity to try that again, they still managed to find another way to screw over UND for the second year in a row.

According to the NCAA website, there are six different criteria used to select/seed teams. They are, in no particular order of priority, as follows: 1. overall record 2. head-to-head results 3. record vs. common opponents 4. record within the region 5. overall strength of schedule 6. strength of schedule within the region overall record UND 25-5 NDSU 25-6 advantage: UND head-to-head results each team was 1-1 advantage: none record vs. common opponents UND 16-4 NDSU 14-5 advantage: UND won/loss record within the region UND 20-5 NDSU 16-5 advantage: UND overall strength of schedule index UND 10.6 power points per game NDSU 10.74 power points per game advantage: NDSU strength of schedule within the region UND 10.74 power points per game NDSU 10.32 power points per game advantage: UND So if you're keeping score at home, UND has the advantage in four of the six categories, is coming off an NCC tournament title including wins over the supposed top two teams in the region away from home, and yet is seeded two spots lower than NDSU. Is this fair? Perhaps if you're an NDSU fan, but probably not by any other standard.

What I find so annoying about these seedings is that coming into the NCC tournament, UND and NDSU were essentially dead even. They tied for third in the NCC, had the same number of losses overall, and split the season series. So you would think that whomever did better in the tournament would gain the upper hand. UND goes out and wins the tournament, including a convincing win over USD and a win against the number one team on their home court. Those wins count for huge power points. NDSU gets hammered in the semi-finals at SDSU, making them 0-3 on the year against the Jackrabbits. UND, by comparison, is now 2-1 against SDSU. I would defy anyone to make a convincing case that NDSU merits being seeded higher than UND after this past week. I don't think it's possible. Either the committee somehow got UND and NDSU confused when doing the seedings, or some people on this committee are dishonest and/or incompetent. This is the second year in a row that UND has been screwed in the seedings so draw your own conclusions here.

Unbelievable. The UND women are seeded fifth? Give me a break! How the hell can NDSU be seeded third? This may be the most brainless committee ever. You would swear that the committee thought NDSU swept the season series with UND or something. UND was 4-4 against the other three good teams in the NCC. NDSU was 2-5, with three of the losses being total blow-outs. I guess there wasn't really any point to the playing the NCC tournament because UND gained nothing by beating the supposed two best team in the region on the road (or on a neutral court in the case of USD), while NDSU wasn't penalized at all by getting hammered yet again by SDSU. What a joke.

This is strictly a guess, but here is how I see the seedings for the regionals: Women 1. SDSU 2. USD 3. UND 4. Kearney 5. UMD 6. NDSU 7. Regis 8. Southwest St. If Kearney loses today, they would fall down to about sixth. It would certainly be interesting to have a UND-NDSU match-up in the first round. The Herald speculated that UND could be seeded as high as second, but I doubt the committee will jump the Sioux ahead of USD considering USD was the co-champion of the league and won two of three against UND. Men 1. Kearney 2. St. Cloud 3. Fort Hays 4. Metro St. 5. SDSU 6. UND 7. Fort Lewis 8. UMD or MSU-Moorhead Northern State should be out because they were only ranked 10th last week, lost in their conference tournament, and lost head-to-head to the Sioux. UNO was only 8-8 (10-9 counting the tournament) in the NCC and lost two of three to UND. NDSU just had too many losses and the home loss to UND should have ended their hope of getting the nod over the Sioux. Nobody else seems to have much of a case for getting in.

Good news--St. Cloud beats UNO in mens basketball. Better news--UND women defeat SDSU in Brookings 90-87! Just when I thought the Sioux were down and out after blowing big leads to USD and NDSU, they rebound for their third straight NCC tournament title. The bad news is that had they not blown those two big leads, odds are that UND would have hosted the regional. At least they have regained momentum heading into the playoffs.

I completely agree that the regional committee should not be able to hold the whole Allen situation against UND when it is selecting teams. My concern is based on the fact that this rumor about how it MAY be used against the Sioux has been mentioned by Rich Glas, the UNO coach in the Omaha paper, and in more than one article in the Forum. Of course, since NDSU and UNO might benefit from such a ruling, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that they are floating that idea around at every opportunity. The committee would have a credibility problem in my opinion by jumping NDSU, USD, UNO (if they lose tonight), etc. over UND because IF they were going to somehow penalize UND for the Allen situation, then they should have just been up front about it and not been including UND in the rankings at all to this point. It's not like this just now became known. Also, the criteria about considering the availability of players was clearly adoped in the event that a star player should go down with an injury late in the year. For example, had Jerome Beasley been injured against UNO, then I'm certain that this would have been a consideration used against the Sioux. I DON'T think this criteria has any relevance to Allen's absence. Finally, while the make-up of the committee is different from the football regional committee, I think it's relevant that UNC was not penalized for their use of an ineligible quarterback for three games and was chosen for the playoffs.

The men really need St. Cloud to knock off Omaha tonight, and for Northern State to win the NSIC tournament. I have a feeling that the RMAC will get four teams in and the NCC is only going to get three teams into the playoffs. St. Cloud and SDSU are locks from the NCC which probably leaves only one spot. If Omaha happens to beat St. Cloud, the Sioux are in big trouble and I don't believe they'll make the field. While it's certainly possible that the Myron Allen situation will be used against the Sioux (seven wins with an ineligible player), I don't believe that the committee can do what the NCAA itself did not do, i.e. count those games as forfeits. UND probably has the third-best credentials among the NCC teams, played very well down the stretch (aside from Tuesday's game) and obviously did finish third in the conference without Allen. While it's not technically a criteria used by the committee in selecting teams for post-season, these are the records of teams on the bubble (including UNO, Northern St. and Fort Lewis if they don't win the conference tournament and get an automatic bid) against dII opponents: UND 17-8 UNO 15-9 (pending the outcome of SCSU game) NDSU 16-11 Northern 17-7 (but only 1-4 against the NCC) Fort Lewis 18-9 UND does have the head-to-head advantage against Northern St. and UNO. I'm not including USD due to their lengthy late-season losing streak, but I guess they are also conceivably on the bubble.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Why not educate students as to what is and what is not appropriate behavior, while at the same time moving them from immediately behind the opposing team's bench so that those who aren't willing to be educated can't do as much damage?

The bottom line to me is that if the seats immediately behind the opposing team's bench are reserved for fans of that school--as is done at UND--you don't have anywhere near these kinds of problems. If somebody is heckling you from 50 or 100 feet away, that's one thing. But when that person is 5-10 feet away and practically in the coach's face, it's a little different. I imagine if a large group of UND students were sitting 5 feet behind Amy Ruley, things would get pretty ugly, too. Fortunately, UND reserves that section for fans of the visiting team. I don't think it's too much to ask for NDSU to do the same.

According to Tuesday's Herald, 6'0" forward Lindsay Draayer of Owatonna, Minnesota has given the UND women a verbal commitment. However, according to the SDSU website, she signed a letter of intent with them back in November. Does anybody know what the deal is?

UND recruit Aaron Austin is having quite a year at Fergus Falls Community College. They won the Minnesota state tournament over the weekend, with Austin going for 33 in the title game against Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Austin was also named tournament MVP. Fergus is now 27-1 on the year. Coming into the tournament, Austin was averaging 21 points, 2.5 steals, and 5.4 assists per game, and he scored well above his average during the tournament. He's going to have a big impact for the Sioux next year.

All I can say is that my personal enjoyment of reading posts on this site is greatly enhanced by NOT reading anything written by JBB. Not that it's any of my business, but for what it's worth I would have absolutely no problem with the moderator of an NDSU site banishing a UND equivalent of JBB, otherwise known as a "bizarro" JBB for any Seinfeld fans out there.

Is that really the best you can come up with? The old "yeah, but what about what YOU did" response? If you think that two allegations of racial taunts at NDSU games in one year isn't a cause for criticism, then I guess that's your prerogative, misguided as it may be. I don't think anyone has said that all UND fans are saints. Not that it has any relevance to the issue of racial slurs at NDSU games.

A very gutty win by the UND men tonight in Fargo. Beasley was his typical self, Brandt played like the Brandt of old, and Porter and Mike Johnson were both solid. What can you say about Jade Jahner? He played his best game as a Sioux. UND is now 7-1 in the second half of the NCC schedule. No question the Sioux are the hottest team in the NCC right now. I only watched the game on TV, but it certainly seemed like the crowd was pretty obnoxious (see star2city's post in another thread and the Forum article). And while Cofield is a pretty good player, his urging of the crowd to make noise during UND free throws was not exactly the epitome of sportsmanship. If playoff berths were handed out tonight, it looks like the seedings might be something like this: 1. Nebraska-Kearney 2. St. Cloud 3. Metro St. 4. SDSU 5. UND 6. Fort Hays 7. Northern St. (or whomever wins the NSIC tournament) 8. either NDSU or the 4th place team from the RMAC As for the UND women, the word "choke" certainly comes to mind again. I have lost all faith in their ability to hold a lead. When you're up three with only a few seconds to go, why not foul instead of giving up a three-point shot? I'd rather take my chances of getting the rebound off the missed free throw than hope the three-pointer doesn't go in.

It should be pointed out that Central dismantled Grafton even though Jacques Lamoureux--arguably the Knights top offensive player during the regular season--didn't play for most of the game. He suffered a broken wrist early in the second period. It's hard to judge teams from different eras, but there are a lot of knowledgable hockey people who say this year's Central team is as good as they've seen in a long time. It's hard to believe that Phil Lamoureux, who I believe would have been a senior at Central this year, and Kasey Moreland are the same age. Has any high school school ever produced two division I-caliber goalies from the same class?

I know a lot of Bison fans wanted Bradley, but he has no head coaching experience nor any division I experience. Plus, although Babich was the obvious scapegoat for last season's debacle and the lack of a title of any kind since 1994, I believe Bradley was on the staff for Babich's entire tenure and thus has to shoulder at least some responsibility for the recent failings and/or underachievement, as well. Plus, as the assistant head coach under Babich, he has to take at least a little of the blame for a couple of lackluster recruiting classes in recent years which played a role in last year's 2-8 record and the necessity to take the red-shirts off far too many true freshman.

He's averaging 6.5 ppg, down from 14.5 ppg last year. I'm sure he's got a lot of potential or he wouldn't have been ranked in the top 10 college prospects in the state of Wisconsin. But I can't help but be a little concerned about such a large drop-off in scoring from his junior year to his senior year. On the other hand, put him on a high school team in ND or even any other team in Wisconsin besides King and maybe he's averaging 20 per game.

Here's what I've been able to gather on Costa Rica native Franklyn Ferguson: 6'6" 240 pounds; Led Mon-Dak Conference in scoring at 23.5/game; Very strong and athletic; Only a freshman at Lake Region but is 25 years old; Had 26 points and 7 boards last night against NDSCS; As star2city mentioned, he is not eligible to go division I so he'll likely end up at a division II school; Kentucky Wesleyan wants him badly, as do numerous other dII's. If he decides to leave Lake Region early, it sounds like he would really fill a need for the Sioux. At present, there are no returning post players who have much bulk or strength. Recruit Mike Gutter is apparently pretty strong as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if he red-shirts next season.

Does anyone know whether Glas and/or Roebuck plan to sign anyone in the spring signing period? I think Roebuck should consider signing another power forward/center since Boll is graduating and recruit Val Sannes is questionable for next year with a serious knee injury. I like the potential front line of Leighton, Boese and Demaine, but depth looks questionable if Sannes isn't able to play. Plus, Leighton and Demaine will be seniors next year. Hopefully, red-shirt Jami Glick will be able to contribute next season also. As for the men, another power forward/center and possibly a juco point guard would seem to be possibilities. Obviously the wing spots appear very solid and deep with Brandt, M. Johnson, Austin and Jacobson. Jahner has seen his playing time dwindle so I'm not sure he's the answer at the point. I like Steve Bradley but it's questionable whether he could defend the quicker point guards. Recruit Josh Doyle is supposed to be one of the better players in Iowa and an excellent offensive player. It's possible he could play as a true freshman. I think Rypkema will be one of the better post players in the NCC next season. He'd probably start at many NCC schools right now. 6'11" guys with coordination and a nice shooting touch are pretty rare commodities in division II (or even in low to mid-level division I). Evan Lindahl has shown flashes of being an excellent offensive player. I'd love to see a wide-body post scorer, even if he's not all that tall. I have heard that the guy at Lake Region (Ferguson?) is a pretty good prospect but I'm not sure whether he's being recruited heavily by UND or not. Supposedly dII power Kentucky Wesleyan really wants him.